


Abyss

by brandizzle93



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Bad guys are bad guys, Blood and Violence, Depression, Drug Addiction, Dubious Consent, F/M, Kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Murder, Not a Love Story, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Relationships, Unless you Squint a little bit, Vampires, good guys are bad guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-21 02:47:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandizzle93/pseuds/brandizzle93
Summary: Some nights Bella would gaze up at the light fixture above her bed and wonder how she got here. It would flicker and the she would watch it, unblinking. Sometimes she swore it flickered to the beat in her heart, the rush of her veins. Could he hear it? she wondered. Vampires. Extreme violence and gore. There's romance in this story, but it's the seriously depraved kind





	1. Records

**Author's Note:**

> Authors Note:
> 
> This story is heavily inspired by the novel Donor by Elena Hearty. It was a book I picked up on a whim at the library and immediately I thought of refurbishing the plot a bit for a Twilight fic. I've never written for Twilight before and haven't read the books in quite some time, but either way, I hope that you guys enjoy. The first chapter starts out a bit slow, but it picks up pretty quick.

 

 

Chapter One

.

.

Bella rummaged through her bag, her hands shaking with both panic and something else before finally she found what she searched for, fingers gripping around it in triumph. She squinted as she tried to read the label of the prescription bottle in the poor lighting of her car but she managed and they were exactly what she had been looking for. Bella let out the shaky breath she hadn't known she had been holding, quickly spinning the top off and shaking out four of them into her palm. She noticed in passing that there were eight pills left in the bottle.

She closed the bottle and tucked it back into her oversized bag before she popped the pills into her mouth and began to chew. The taste was god awful – bitter and grainy – but if she chewed them they kicked in faster and god, she needed them to kick in now.

After sitting there for another ten minutes, Bella felt her heartbeat begin to slow and her lungs loosened to allow her to breathe normally. She turned off her car, shaking her head and letting out an almost manic laugh. She trembled like a leaf as she stared at the handle of her car before she took another deep breath and opened it quickly, stepping out into the world.

She had to park two streets over from the small coffee shop that had been previously agreed upon. It was that or pay for parking and that was just  _not_  going to happen. As she walked, Bella took the time to consider how she had gotten here. She hadn't always been like this – having to pop pills to simply go out and function like a normal human being.

After her mother's funeral two years ago, Bella had closed all the doors and refused to come out. She had never been one to have very many friends in the first place and the few that she did have she ignored completely until they eventually left her alone. She deleted all of her public social media profiles, though she still maintained an anonymous online presence. Bella moved from her old apartment to her mother's home, several towns over, further distancing herself from everyone she knew. Bella would leave her house to visit the grocery weekly and would have an occasional doctor's visit, but other than that she stayed within her home, in isolation.

The doctors called it  _agoraphobia_  – but it was more than just simply being afraid of the world outside her door. She  _hated_ the world outside; it was a world of festering decay with awful people doing awful things everywhere. It made her anxious and sometimes physically sick to walk out the door into a world where good people met unfortunate ends and terrible people were able to prosper. Interacting with people, especially strangers, would make her heart race and pound in her ears, her palms sweat, her lungs close off from air.

When the doctor she went to see after her mother's death had first suggested Xanax, Bella had refused. She had never taken any medication other than antibiotics her whole life – and besides she wasn't even really sick, she just hated dealing with other people. But her doctor had insisted, saying that the prescription along with continued therapy would help improve her life considerably before writing her a 30 day script and sending her on her way. These days it was the doctors that were the real drug dealers, Bella had come to learn. After two years it had gotten to the point where she only had to meet with her doctor once every six months and her prescription had enough refills for all the months in between.

Bella  _liked_  the way Xanax made her feel – or rather how it  _didn't_  make her feel. The thought of leaving the house nowadays without at least two of those delicacies made her physically start to shake. But if Bella were to be honest, it had gotten to the point where she took them all day, every day just because she wanted to – liked to, even – whether she was leaving the house or not.

Luckily for her, her job as a software engineer allowed her plenty of work at home options, and she was easily able to provide for herself without having to leave her house. It also didn't hurt that she had a pretty stellar benefits package, which niftily covered her little habit almost completely. There was one other doctor she had to see but he did not bill her provider, which was fine because her job also paid well and she simply did not have many bills, leaving her plenty of left over cash flow to cover the property tax on her mother's home and also fund her hobbies, which had grown exponentially as her isolation continued.

Her mother always had hobbies, and Bella had participated in almost all of them just as fast as they came and went – sculpting, ballet, piano, learning to speak Russian, yoga, knitting and so many others that Bella could think of. Her mother had been a jack of all trades, master of none. After her mother's death, Bella decided to become a jack of all trades, master of  _all_.

She had piano lessons as a girl and she retaught herself the basics via the internet, eventually moving onto more complicated pieces. Bella wouldn't call herself a  _master_  by any means but she had recorded herself a few times and when she listened to it afterwards it had been pretty good, in her opinion. She had decided against sculpting and instead decided to pursue sketching and painting – she oddly enough painted much better than she drew but was not exactly a master at either practice. She had bought the Rosetta Stone program for Russian and felt pretty sure that she could successfully introduce herself, ask to find a bathroom, ask for directions and what the best food to eat was. Definitely not a master there yet, either.

But she continued to practice, determined to forge something of sustenance. If she wasn't going to have any relationships with the people outside her door or her computer, she had to leave her mark some other way. Compose a song or paint a masterpiece, or maybe she world learn fifty languages. Something that she could point towards and hold on to when people questioned the way she lived. Despite Bella's desire to distance herself from other humans, she still craved achievement.

And perhaps one cat. She had seen an email the other day from a pet rescue she had donated to in the past that this orange monstrosity with a missing eye needed fostering. His name was Charlie, her dad's name. He even kind of looked like him too, if Charlie had been a cat.

Bella finally reached the door of the shop, taking a deep breath before entering. It was late on a Tuesday night, just a little after eight, and there was only a few other patrons inside. Bella walked straight to order, looking only at the dark haired youth behind the counter and nobody else.

"Green tea, please," Bella said politely, before the kid had a chance to greet her. Without her Xanax, she would definitely never be here. She shopped at the Plex about ten minutes from her home and she always did it on Thursday, when her favorite cashier Julia worked. Julia was just about the best cashier Bella had ever had – no small talk, just quick at scanning and bagging.

Bella was only here because last week she had been cleaning out her mother's attic and found the gramophone that had once been her grandmother's. Renee had gotten it and played it often in the years after her own mother passed. Bella had completely forgotten about it until that moment but as soon as she saw it grief had crashed into her fresh and sharp.

Bella had been unable to find any of the original records Renee had once owned and decided to do a quick search for the Fleetwood Mac one her mother had been particularly enamored with. Much to her surprise, she found that there was a private seller in a town a little over a half hour away from her, and he had put it for sale along with several others. His price was the cheapest too, especially if she wanted more than one.

Bella had selected a few she was looking for and he offered to meet her at one of the local coffee shops for the sale. Bella had decided to go for it – she would be able to physically look at them and see condition before actually buying, it was in a public place, she was getting a great deal – she would be fine, as long as she had her precious little bottle of candy at hand.

He told her the total and she handed him a bill from her wallet. "Name?" the young man asked as he handed her change.

"Bella," she replied swiftly, before walking down to where the counter area where it would be given to her. Bella tucked her hands in the pockets of her sweat shirt, resisting the urge to pull up her hood.  _People who wore hoods inside were weird_ , she reminded herself.

"Excuse me, did you say your name was Bella?" a voice broke through her inner dialogue. It came from directly behind her, and she jumped slightly as she turned.

She came face to face with probably the best looking man she had ever seen. He was tall, bronze haired and had striking green eyes over high cheekbones. His skin was pale and smooth, hardly a wrinkle in sight. Bella observed all this about him in a detached way – she honestly didn't care if he was a Greek god or a leper, she just wanted his records. Just wanted to hear the sound her mother once grieved with.

"Yes. You must be Edward?" Bella recovered quickly. The man nodded. She was surprised – she was ten minutes early, having hoped to get a faraway booth and wait for him to arrive.

"That is me," the man smiled. "You said you wanted to see the condition so I got a table. It's just back there," Edward pointed. It appeared he had had the exact same plan as her, just better execution.

Just then the worker placed her tea on the counter. Bella scooped it up before she wordlessly began walking toward the table he had pointed to. Edward did the same, and Bella found herself sitting across from him.

"May I?" Bella asked, eying the stack of records that was at Edward's elbow. The man nodded, sliding them towards her. Bella took the first record with careful hands, sliding it out of its case just so to avoid getting the oil from her fingers on it. As he had said online, it was in perfect condition. "These are wonderful," she complimented, sliding it back into the case and reaching for the next. "The condition is phenomenal – minimal dust in the grooves, no cracks," she went on. She read online that she would still have been able to play them with scratches and such but every time the needle ran over it would further damage the record and there would be a loud  _pop_. No wonder people had gone digital.

"My father collected them," Edward said by way of explanation. "I clean them regularly, to keep the condition," he paused and Bella looked up from the record to see him observing her closely. The pills she took earlier must be starting to kick in because her chest barely tightened at all. "You seem a bit young to be into records. Don't you have a phone?" he asked, one corner of his mouth turning up in the smallest of grins.

Bella reflected that the pills were definitely working. Otherwise she was sure that that look would have caused her to dissolve into a panic attack. Was he making fun of her? Was he flirting? No, that wasn't even possible. Oh, god, she hoped he wasn't flirting. Despite her internal panic, Bella was able to keep her face trained what she hoped was a friendly smile.

"My mother listened to them often when I was young. I found her gramophone the other day and what can I say?" she shrugged, "I was struck by nostalgia," she gathered the discs and placed them atop one another, carefully lining the edges up exactly before she looked back up at him. "These ones were her favorites and I wanted to have them. I don't know how often I'll listen to them, though. Fleetwood Mac is okay, I suppose, but the hair bands aren't exactly my thing," she admitted.

"Oh?" Edward commented dryly. "And what kind of music do you prefer?" he asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket and glancing at it lazily. That was Bella's sign that she was good to go – she had small talked like a normal person long enough for someone to become bored of her.

"Classical, mostly," Bella admitted airily, reaching for her purse. "Debussy, Bach, Tchaikovsky, that sort of thing," she dug in her oversized bag, searching for her wallet. She liked music without words to muck the waters – enjoyed the pure emotion that sound itself could inspire. "We agreed on three hundred, yeah?"

"You should have mentioned you enjoyed classical music," he ignored her question, leaning towards her with renewed interest, phone back in his pocket. "To be honest, that is what makes up most of most of my collection. These are just trifles," he said, waving his hand dismissively at the records on the table. Bella noticed that he had large hands, with very long, graceful looking fingers. She found herself wondering if he played piano.

"Oh," Bella shifted nervously in her seat, unsure what to say. "When I looked at your items for sale, there were no classical options..." she trailed off, unsure what else to say. Feeling uncomfortable, she looked again for her wallet and finally found it.

"The classical stuff never sells. Believe it or not, not even hipsters have the urge to listen to them," he smiled at her. "Besides, I have hundreds and posting and trying to sell them online would be a hassle."

Bella chewed on the inside of her cheek, anxious. "Perhaps we could meet again next week?" she suggested, though she wasn't sure if she could convince herself to leave the house voluntarily to meet this man two weeks in a row.

"Nonsense. If you like, I can show you now. My apartment is less than a ten minutes from here, if you would like to see them," he offered her nonchalantly.

"Oh, really, that's okay," Bella said quickly, "I'd love to but I don't want to put you out," she waved him off. "Now we did say three –"

"If you would love to see them, I would love to show them to you," Edward interrupted gracefully, "It really is no trouble," he assured her.

Bella hesitated. If she went there with him, she would not have to come back next week. He seemed relatively normal, from her interaction with him. Perhaps he was just desperate to clean out some of his father's collection – he did say he had hundreds of them, after all. Plus she had been doing so well today, and hadn't made a fool of herself at all in their interaction. The idea of being inside someone else's house made her a bit queasy, but there was minimal panic at the notion.

"Um, sure," Bella finally acquiesced, nodding her head. "Would you mind giving me a minute?" she asked, motioning to the restroom.

"Of course," Edward replied, sitting back in the booth and pulling out his phone again.

Bella scurried into the bathroom, approaching the line of sinks. She grabbed the cold edges of the sink, leaning against it as she took several deep breaths.  _You're fine, don't freak out, you're not even acting like a freak_ , Bella thought to herself. Rolling her shoulders, she turned the water on and splashed her face several times with the cold water. After she dried off with the paper towel, Bella reached into her bag and pulled out her pill bottle. She took two of them out and noticed only six remained. She wasn't too worried as she popped the pills into her mouth and chewed. She had gotten her 90 - day script filled just the other day and it was at home waiting for her.

It was a comforting thought.

She didn't want to take too long in the bathroom – who knows what he thought she was doing in here – and so she chewed quickly and swallowed. Six was more than Bella usually took when she was out and about, but she had been doing so well and really didn't want to ruin it by potentially having a panic attack in some nice collector's apartment.

Feeling somewhat confident, exited the bathroom and Edward looked up at the same instant. "Shall we?" he asked, scooping up the titles from the table before standing fluidly.

Bella nodded and led the way out of the coffee shop, though she obviously let him lead the rest of the way. She kept her hands in her pockets, clenched tightly into fists but other than that she felt almost relaxed. It wasn't a terrible time, and the Xanax-fueled haze she found herself in allowed for her to participate in normal conversation. She learned that he actually owned the apartment complex the he lived in.

"I inherited it," he offered in explanation at her dumbfounded look. "The building was built in 1902 and my great-grandfather purchased it in 1916," he told her. "It's been in the family ever since," he pointed what she assumed was it, across the street from where they were.

Bella nodded and they crossed the road. She understood that – she lived in the house that had once been her grandmother's, and then her mother's before it became hers.

They walked into a brightly lit, cozy lobby. At the front desk sat a woman in her late forties, her red hair in a tight bun. She smiled at Edward, and he inclined his head respectfully as they passed.

"I'm in B16," he told her, as he led her to a door marked stairwell. He held it open and followed her into the stairwell, but when she went to climb he stopped her. "B16 is down one level," he informed her.

"Oh," Bella said nervously, before she nodded and descended the floor with him.

He smiled at her, "The apartment number is misleading," he allowed. "When the building was built, there were sixteen apartments to a floor. When my great-grandfather bought the building, he moved into this unit, and started expanding as people moved out. Now just about half the floor is my apartment and the rest is utilities," he explained.

He held the door open for her again and she stepped into an empty hallway. All other doors along the basement hall appeared to have been boarded up or hastily filled with cement, Bella noted as she followed him to his door. There was one single lighting fixture that flickered from above. It caused their shadows to flicker across the expanse of the empty hallway. The motion drew Bella's eye – it looked like hers was running.

"I bet you don't get many trick-or-treaters," Bella joked, trying to keep her nerves at bay. It was a creepy hallway – that was all. He explained that he was the only one that lived down here – why would he bother trying to make the hallway look nice? She was sure the upper floors looked much nicer, as the lobby had.

He grinned at her as he pulled his keys from his pocket, "No trick-or-treaters," he admitted as he fumbled with the lock – Bella noted there were three deadbolts. Odd, but she had two herself at home. He was a collector, also, and there were sure to be valuable things inside.

"Do you live alone?" she asked, wondering if he lived alone or had someone, like a roommate or a girlfriend.

"Yes," Edward turned the final deadbolt, holding it open for her. "Ladies first," he said politely.

She took a deep breath before stepping inside. Bella actually felt a bit curious to know what the inside of his apartment looked like. She had a brief flash of a sort of organized chaos, empty pizza boxes next to stacks of records and books and loose papers all over the place. Instead, she stepped onto marble flooring inside a sprawling foyer. Bella's eyes flashed up to the ornate ceilings and crown molding – it was as if she had just stepped into some sort of urban mansion.

"Wow, it is beautiful in here," she complimented as her eyes landed on a sculpture of some sort of abstract object with interest "Definitely not what I expected…" she trailed off, unsure if she was being rude. Edward didn't say anything, and Bella looked back to see that his head was tilted ever so slightly and his face was very focused, as if straining to hear something. Bella saw something flash in his eyes before he quickly brushed by her without a word, down a hallway.

Unsure what to do, Bella hesitantly followed him, not wanting to be awkwardly standing in the foyer of his house. As she trailed behind him, the sound of a woman crying reached her ears. What was happening? Hadn't Edward said he lived alone? She faltered in her steps and Edward fell out of sight, around the corner. Bella wasn't sure what kept her feet trailing after him but as she turned the corner it took her several moments to truly process what she was seeing.

There was a man in the room, covered in blood. He stood over a disheveled girl and a pile of something…else on the ground. The girl had pitch-black hair and clothes to match and she was crying – great, heaving sobs that shook her entire frame. Two trails of snot ran down her nose. She seemed to be focused on the red, pulpy looking thing on the ground next to her and Bella focused in on it.

A moment passed and Bella realized it was a body. A dead human body. Its face was crushed beyond all recognition and the clothes that weren't shredded were absolutely soaked in blood. This definitely explained the awful smell that reached her nose. Fear froze Bella's feet to the ground, turned her thoughts to ice.

Suddenly, Edward started laughing. The blood-covered man did as well. Bella watched in horror as the guy who hadn't raised any red flags devolved into a monster right before her eyes. Apparently the lamentation of the girl struck Edward and his friend in high-comedy, for with every sob she released he released a new string of ridicule.

"Perhaps you could give him mouth to mouth," Edward suggested, his voice malicious and cruel. "That might work, honestly. He doesn't look too far gone. Seriously, you should at least try," he encouraged her. The girl made no motion to do the obviously hopeless thing that Edward was ordering her to do. " _DO_  IT," he roared, and the girl jumped in obvious terror.

Bella jumped, too, and it brought her back to her senses. They were not paying attention to her trembling form in the doorway, entirely too delighted in tormenting the sobbing girl on the ground to pay Bella any notice.

Instinctual fear and adrenaline flooded her and she abruptly turned on her heel and back down the hallway. She wanted to run but feared the sound of her feet against the marble floor would give her away, and so she walked as quickly as she could. She needed to get out of here, needed to get to her car, needed to drive home and never ever leave her house ever, ever again.

The front door came into focus and Bella gulped air. She just needed to get out of the apartment and then she could run, just a little further. Bella grabbed the door handle and turned it, but it wouldn't budge when she pulled it. Her eyes traveled up to the three deadbolts and her eyes went wide with dread – they required keys to open them, even from the inside. Had Edward sealed her in as soon as they entered? She hadn't heard his keys. She pulled the handle again, uselessly, panic welling up inside her.

A hand came down on her shoulder and Bella jumped practically three foot in the air, spinning around in horror to see Edward directly behind her. His face looked drastically different than when she had met him in the coffee shop – where he had been a charming, polite man then he was a hunter looking at prey now.

"Ditching already, Bella?" he asked facetiously, "You just got here. I haven't even showed you my collection," he mocked her, his mouth pulling down into a pout.

Bella trembled despite herself, "Edward, look – I obviously came at a bad time," she tried her best to keep her voice steady and unafraid, "It looks like you have some stuff going on. I can look at your record collection later, yeah?" Edward smiled at her, though again it was different than it had been in the coffee shop – sinister. He made no motion for the keys. "Please, I don't know what's going on here. I promise to not tell anyone, I won't say  _anything_ ," Bella's voice broke on the last word. "I don't  _belong_ here, just let me go," she pleaded.

Edward smiled as he grabbed her by the hand, "Oh, but I think you  _do_  belong here," Edward replied easily, as if talking about the weather. "Let's go back to the parlor and figure this whole messy situation out, shall we?"


	2. Wrong Place, Wrong Time

 

Chapter Two

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.

Bella pulled at her arm, trying to wrestle it away from him, to no avail. Edward stood expressionless as she attempted and Bella's eyes flashed wildly between him and the door, realizing that even if she could escape his grasp there was no way she could outrun him. He yanked on her arm and Bella stumbled forward – it was obvious that if she wasn't going to walk on her own then he would drag her.

She chose instead to walk by her own will, desperate for some semblance of control over the situation. After she stopped struggling, Edward seemed content to let her set the pace, holding her hand all the while as he casually walked her back into hell. Silently she allowed herself to be led back into the parlor, her pulse pounding in her ears.

When they entered the room again, he dropped Bella's hand, which fell limply back down to her side. Without sparing her another look, Edward turned his attention back to the sobbing girl on the ground. Bella looked at her, too. She was pretty – her hair was dyed blue-black, light brown roots just starting to show, and she had big brown eyes, lined with black, her nose straight and proportional.

"Jessica, perhaps there are things we should discuss?" Edward proposed, sounding almost earnest, though Bella had the feeling that the dark girl did not have any real choice.

The look of absolute terror that flashed across Jessica's face would haunt Bella for a long time. But for now the girl stood shakily and scrambled over to the man covered in blood. She threw herself at him, and Bella watched the entire interaction with a sort of horrified interest. "Please," she sobbed, waterfalls rushing down her face. "Please, I'm so  _so_  sorry," Jessica pleaded. "Don't let him take me, you can't let him take me," she said, her eyes flashing to where Edward stood, a few feet away from Bella. Edward laughed before he started towards her, shaking his head in amusement. Jessica screamed. "PLEASE, please you can't let him. You can't, you can't –"

Bella looked at Edward's apparent friend closely for the first time. He was covered in blood – Bella was pretty sure most of it was not his blood – and so it was difficult to see some of his features, but like Edward, Bella could tell that he was extraordinarily attractive. His hair looked to be blonde or red – she couldn't tell, with all the crimson gore – and he had light brown eyes, or maybe hazel. He was a little shorter than Edward but they were elsewise very similar in build. He also appeared to be the nice one, if Jessica's reaction was anything to go by. That was good to know.

Bella watched as he grabbed the girl's arms, holding her still a moment as he looked closely at her terrified face. Bella thought she might have seen a flash of regret and maybe compassion before the man set his mouth in a grim line. He held her close for a long moment before he pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "Sorry, Jess," he whispered before he handed her to Edward. Jessica screamed as Edward picked her up roughly, throwing her over his shoulder like she weighed less than a sack of potatoes. She was pleading with him as he carried her down a hallway and Bella heard a door slam. The screaming was still there but muffled and Bella could no longer decipher Jessica's words.

It took Bella a moment after Edward and Jessica had exited the room to realize that she was now alone with a dead body and a potential serial killer. Bella looked at him and found that he was already staring at her, expression interested. Bella's heart kicked up in her chest and she let out a shuddering breath.

"Edward asked me to watch you, while he chats with Jessica," the blood covered man said as he stepped towards her.

Bella clenched her purse to her chest, as if it could shield her somehow. "What does that mean, exactly?" she found herself asking.

The man smiled, his eyebrows raising playfully. "What do you think it means, sweet one?" he asked, his tone friendly even as his nostrils flared. There was a flash of something in his eyes that made Bella's stomach drop. She was ninety-nine percent sure that she did  _not_  want to know what Edward had intended it to mean.

 _He's the nice one_ , Bella reminded herself. Her eyes scan across the room and saw that in the far corner there was a sparsely stocked wet bar. It was worth a try, and she was much too sober for her current state. "I - I think it means that you should make me a drink," Bella said, trying to keep her voice even and motioning to the bar.

The bloody man looked at her, scratching his chin as he considered before he nodding. "Fuck it," he shrugged nonchalantly, "I could use a drink myself."

He led Bella over to the bar, and Bella sat on the stool gratefully, her whole body shaking. The man wet a towel before looking back to her. "I'm Jasper, by the way," he introduced himself as he began to wipe the blood and gore from his face. "And you are?" he asked when she said nothing.

"Bella," she whispered, looking away from his interested face.

"Short for Isabella?" Jasper asked charmingly, and for the first time Bella detected a hint of a southern accent in his voice.

"Yes," she nodded, unsure what to say. As Bella watched him wipe the blood away with surprising efficiency, she came to understand that none of the gore that covered his body was his own. Bella glanced back to the body for a split second.  _Most of it must be from him,_  she thought in a detached way.  _Who knew that people had so much blood?_ The pool beneath seemed to be growing every minute, a red blossom flowering on a  _very_  ornate looking rug. Bella cringed, the color of the blood bringing her back a bit. She looked back to Jasper who was throwing the bloodied towel on the bar. For the first time she noticed a wound, on the back of his hand. It was an awful burn; the flesh looked black and crispy. Bella looked away from it - between blood and burns, she was starting to feel a bit queasy.

Now that his face and hands were clean, Bella could confirm that he was he just as attractive as Edward. Not only that, his was also a face that one could imagine twisting from compassion - a face that one could trust. If it weren't for the fact that she had just seen him covered in blood and harassing a terrified girl next to a dead body, Bella would have a hard time believing that he was a cold-blooded killer.

Dangerous.

Jasper flashed her a wide grin, scanning the back shelf for options. "How about a gin and tonic?" he asked over his shoulder.

Before she could answer he was setting it down in front of her, plopping a straw into the cup. Bella blinked – what had just happened? Did she dissociate there for a moment? Whatever it was, Bella was not in the headspace to analyze it right now. Instead she grabbed the drink and downed half of it in two gulps, making a bitter face as she choked it down. She wasn't a drinker but at this point, she would take what she could get.

Speaking of which, Bella reached for her bag and shakily pulled out her prescription bottle. Only six left. She didn't feel as comfortable about that anymore. Still, now was not the time to worry. She took three, saving half just in case, and began to chew. When she was done, she knocked back the rest of her drink, motioning for a refill.

"What are those for?" Jasper asked her, motioning to the pills. Bella stared at him. It was a rude question and it was none of his business, but Bella was pretty honest by nature and really, what did it matter?

"Anxiety. It's Xanax," she said shortly, as he plopped another drink in front of her. Again she hadn't been paying attention to him making it, but inwardly shrugged. Whatever.

"Huh. Anxiety issues," Jasper said thoughtfully. "Tonight must be a real treat for you," he chuckled lightly as he leaned back against the far end of the bar.

"Oh yeah, I'm definitely not pissing my pants right now," Bella blurted, somehow starting to feel relaxed, despite the circumstances. Perhaps the Xanax were starting to kick in.

"What makes you so anxious?" Jasper asked with a grin, crossing his arms against his broad chest.

 _Other people. Walking down the street. Fluoride in the water. Monsters like you and you_ r  _friend_ , Bella thought mutinously as she gulped at her second drink, but this time she remained silent.

Jasper didn't seem to mind and went on cheerfully, "I knew you must have been on something - unless you're some kind of sociopath, you're way too calm to be sober. Most people with a dead body in the room would have thrown up by now," he explained, and Bella took his word for it. She had no doubt he had more experience with dead bodies than she did. "Or at least be losing their shit pretty bad, like Jessica was," he went on.

"I took six before I came here," Bella found herself admitting ruefully. She smiled to herself before she laughed out loud. "Probably the best decision I've ever made. Otherwise, I promise you, I would be losing my ever-loving shit right now," she cackled at the mental image and took another gulp of her drink. She then reached into her purse and grabbed the almost full pack of Marlboro Reds from within and disposable lighter. She smoked on occasion, mostly when she was really high, really drunk, or really stressed. Bella was going three for three. She lit her cigarette with shaking hands, inhaling deeply.

"Well, aren't you the picture of health?" Jasper snickered, and before she even saw him move he was placing an ashtray on the counter in front of her.  _Something must be wrong with my eyes_ , Bella decided as she exhaled. "Don't worry, sweet one," Jasper went on. "I'm not judging. Vices are great. I  _love_  vices – have a few of them myself, actually," his eyes glanced at the body on the floor lazily before landing back on her. "I suppose I've earned a drink myself now," he announced, reaching under the bar and procuring a clear mug. He approached the corpse and lazily held the glass under a thick gash under the corpse's arm that was still bleeding out quite profusely. Bella wondered how long he had been dead before they had arrived. Minutes? Seconds? The glass filled and Jasper allowed the arm to flop back down lazily onto the very ornate rug on the ground.

He returned to the bar, carrying the full glass very carefully before plopping down on the bar stool next to her. He took a large drink, sighing in satisfaction as he swallowed. Then he placed it down on the counter, looking at her once more. "Forgive me if this makes you uncomfortable. It's better than the alternative, trust me," he said contritely, but Bella had a feeling that he was watching her face closely, trying to gauge a reaction.

Bella took a long drag on her cigarette, unsure what the fuck she was supposed to say. What kind of hell had she willingly walked into? "What are you supposed to be some kind of vampire, or something?" she asked, incredulous, expelling a large cloud of smoke. Blood drinking serial killers. The odds were obviously  _not_  in Bella's favor today.

"Something like that," he said casually, before leaning in closer to her, so close that Bella could smell the copper scent of blood on his clothes. There was a wicked grin on his face, "Do you believe me?" he asked in a stage-whisper.

Bella blew out the smoke she had been holding, "Nope. I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus either. I  _do_  believe that that is seriously unsanitary," Bella shrugged before looking and leaning away from him, desperately trying to hide how revolting it was to have a conversation with someone drinking  _actual_  human blood. She nervously gulped down the rest of her drink, not even tasting it.

The conversation lapsed for several moments and Bella put out her cigarette in the ashtray, her hands trembling. What was going on with Jessica? The screaming had stopped and Bella didn't hear anything. Had he already killed her? Was it her turn now?

"May I?" Jasper asked, reaching for her pack before she could say anything and pulling one out. "It's been a while," he explained cheerfully, lighting up. Bella watched from her peripheral as he practiced blowing smoke rings.

Her mind raced as she tried to imagine ways for her escape. She had yet to see any windows or other doors other than the front, and she needed keys to get out of here. She looked at Jasper and found him staring at her, a weird look on his face. "What?" Bella asked, nervously fidgeting on the bar stool.

"Nothing…" he said after a moment, but his face still looked odd. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked, "Normally I'm pretty good at telling how people are holding up but you're pretty hard to get a feel on," Jasper asked, his brow furrowed.

 _What a nice guy, for a vampire-wannabe serial killer_ , Bella thought scathingly. But she realized that this Jasper guy might be her only chance at escape. "Never better," she quipped, as confidently as you please thanks to her Xanax/gin power combo. "You wouldn't happen to have the keys, would you?"

Jasper laughed, taking a long drink before he spoke. "There is an excellent chance I have the keys," he told her "Why? Are you thinking it's time to split?" he asked, amused. "You don't even want to say goodbye to Edward? You'll break his heart," Jasper teased.

"I have to get home," Bella said, trying to sound as confident as she could. "I need to...finish up some things for work," she supplied lamely. Man, how pitiful was her life that the only fake emergency she could come up with was  _work_? "We have a beta release that launches tomorrow…" she trailed off.

"A beta release? Fascinating. Wouldn't want you to miss that, would we?" his tone took on a similar key as it had when he ridiculed Jessica. Bella shivered and Jasper laughed. "You're not getting out of here. I think you know that, sweet one," Jasper said, not unkindly.

Just then, ear-piercing screams tore through the whole house. They were screams of pure agony and Bella felt all the hair on her body stand on end. She was prey in a den of bloodthirsty wolves. "What is going on in there?" Bella found herself asking, though she was sure that she would rather not know.

She saw him wince before he slid into a grin. "He and Jessica are having a chat," he explained. "Doesn't sound like Jess is enjoying the experience, I'll give you that."

 _Oh, god_ , Bella thought to herself. _I'm next. I'm going to die_. She reached across the bar, grabbing the gin and taking a swig right from the bottle, bitterly swallowing it down. Bella lit another cigarette.

"Are you supposed to mix Xanax and alcohol?" Jasper asked, watching as she gulped from the bottle. "Your speech is getting slurred," he pointed out.

Bella rolled her eyes, looking at him like he was an absolute moron, "Of  _course_  you're not supposed to mix them," Bella told him before shrugging. "Not that I care. I'm just hoping I pass out soon," she admitted to him, taking a quick drag for her cigarette. "If you and your friend's plan is to rape me or kill me or eat me, let me tell you – I want to miss the  _whole_  show," she waved her arm for emphasis.

Jasper grinned, obviously amused, "Yes, I am aware of what your plan is," he told her. "Edward's probably going to be pissed that I'm letting you but how can I say no to that face?" he said, his tone sweet as syrup. Bella grimaced, wondering if he was mocking her. Then she decided that she couldn't care less. "How did Edward get you down here, anyway? That's not his normal motive," Jasper asked, looking at her curiously.

Bella shrugged, taking another drag of her smoke before she took another swig of the bottle. "He posted an ad for sale online for records. He was going to 'show me his collection'," she told him the air-quotes obvious despite her lack of movement. She grimaced as she remembered her and Edward's interactions at the coffee shop. Maybe all those Xanax had not been the best idea, after all.

"Interesting. You know, he really does. Have a record collection," he told her. "It's funny, Edward never really brings people down here unless he's going to kill them. But he was really pissed when he saw me here with Jessica and our friend down there," he motioned to the body vaguely. "I have a feeling he was really going to show you his collection. Probably wasn't even planning on killing you," Jasper told her.

 _Wow_ , that makes everything  _so_  much better," Bella sneered, grimacing. Jasper grinned at her sarcasm, taking another gulp from his glass of sticky red fluid. Bella fought back the urge to gag, looking away. Her Xanax shield started to crack, anxiety leaking through as she realized she hadn't heard screaming for quite some time. Is it going to happen now? Bella wondered, her eyes starting to burn. Did she hear water running now? "So, did you kill him?" she asked, motioning to the body on the floor, not trying to look at it. She didn't want to know the specifics of the fate that awaited her.

"Well,  _technically_ , yes," Jasper actually sounded a bit guilty about it. "But I try really hard not kill people as a general rule," he explained. "I'm not really a _killer_ , just an opportunistic feeder really," he said this vehemently, and from the way he said it Bella found herself wondering how often he had said those four words to himself. He obviously wasn't trying to convince her of the fact, after all – why convince a girl that was pretty much dead already?

"I don't think there's a grey area, Jasper," Bella found herself saying. She took another drink. "If you kill people, you're a killer. It's pretty simple," she slurred.

"Is it?" Jasper whispered, almost to himself.

Bella lit another cigarette, ignoring the fact that the entire room was filled with the noxious smoke. Edward seemed like the type that didn't allow people to smoke inside, but that was a whole lot of  _not her problem_. Jasper grabbed another cigarette anyway, so at least she wasn't alone in the offense. Bella wondered if Edward would make her scream more for stinking up his stupid urban-mansion. She trembled, taking a last inhale of the cigarette before she put it out.

The water had stopped. Perhaps it was going to end soon. The thought made her chest constrict. She didn't want to die. She hadn't even learned any good insults in Russian yet. Her twenty-third birthday was still four months away. She wasn't ready.

"It's not fair," Bella groaned, letting her head drop onto the smooth surface of the bar. It was nice and cool on her feverish skin. "There is supposed to be ' _Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate_ ' on the entrance. It's supposed to  _warn_  you," she rambled, her Italian slurring awfully in her drunken state.

"What does that mean?" Jasper asked, laughing amusedly at her misery. "Is that Latin or something?"

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," came a voice from the hallway, and Bella wearily lifted her head and saw that Edward had entered the parlor. He was freshly showered and had different clothes on. His face was twisted, nose scrunched in disgust. "It's from  _Dante's Inferno_. It's written above the gates of Hell," he told Jasper, who cackled at the implication. Edward looked at Bella, "Is she drunk? You let her drink?" he demanded.

"Let me?" Bella laughed. "He  _made_  me the drinks. Makes a mean gin and tonic, Jasper does," Bella complimented, holding the bottle of gin close to her chest, not wanting Edward to steal it. She took a quick, large swig. "Is there a better time to get murdered than when you're trashed?" Bella asked, mostly to herself. "I think  _not_ ," she giggled.

"How much did you give her?" Edward asked. "I can't believe you let her smoke, it smells like a fucking ashtray in here now. Oh, I also really want to thank you for killing the guy on the four thousand dollar rug, by the way. Truly well done, Jasper," despite the fact that Edward's tone was light and airy and despite being quite inebriated, Bella knew that Edward was _pissed_. A dull thread of anxiety lanced up her spine but Bella ignored it, much too drunk and high to care just exactly how pissed off Edward would feel when he killed her.

"Sorry, man," Jasper grinned, shrugging. Bella didn't think that he looked sorry, not one bit. "I don't think she's had too much, honestly," he held up his fingers to emphasize, "But she  _has_ she's taken  _nine_  Xanax, if you count the six she had before she got here," he told a surprised Edward.

 _Speaking of which_ , Bella thought, grabbing her purse and then her prescription bottle within. The two men watched as she quickly unscrewed the top, lifting the bottle to her lips and gobbling the three remaining pills inside. She doubted they would be of any use to her after tonight, anyway. After Bella chewed she washed it down with another swig of gin. She shuddered – god, she  _hated_  gin.

"You're going to give yourself alcohol poisoning, sweet one," Jasper told her kindly. "You don't normally drink, do you?"

"No," Bella admitted freely. "Sounds like a better way to go than whatever you guys have planned. Got anymore four thousand dollar rugs? I'll direct my vomit in its direction," she giggled again.

"How'd it go with Jessica?" Jasper asked, and Bella placed her head back onto the bar. Passing out was proving to be a very challenging endeavor.

"Well, she definitely tells a different story than you do," Edward laughed. "How did they get a knife like that in here? That pisses me off. We're going to have to toss her room later."

"I think that you're overreacting," Jasper said, "It was just a knife. Maybe our friend brought it in. It wasn't necessarily Jessica's."

"Where did you find him, anyhow?" Edward asked scornfully. "Oh, wait, I want to guess! Your creepy human henchman found him online," When Jasper said nothing, Edward laughed maliciously. "Yeah? Do I win something if I'm right?"

Jasper finished off his drink, leaving nothing but a bloody smudge at the bottom of the glass. "You can talk shit about Garrett all you want, but he has filled your requirements many times," Jasper said as he stood. Bella watched him step carefully around the body, standing in front of Edward.

"The guys is a freak. He always brings me freaks," Edward sneered, his teeth gnashing. "I'm  _sick_  of freaks."

"I bet you use him to find your next supply," Jasper said with an air of superiority, a small grin forming on his mouth.

"Another Jessica? No fucking thank you," Edward scoffed, "I think I can handle it myself. Honestly, I'm thankful that you got her killed. She was driving me insane with the absolute drivel going on in her head."

Jasper's ever-present grin sagged a little, "Cut her a break, man. She's dead," he said quietly, looking down at the ground.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Edward spat. "Was that insensitive of me? I didn't realize how broken up you were about it. Do you need me to get you a box of tissue?" he asked with dark humor. "What kind of person signs up for this shit? You have to be sick in the head," he tapped his skull with one of his long fingers. "Just look what she did to your arm, for fucks sake."

Bella could only assume he was talking about the burn mark on the back of Jasper's hand. Bella glanced at it again and wondered if she was truly losing it. It looked remarkably healed – as if weeks of healing had happened in the span they had spent talking. _Something is definitely wrong with my eyes_ , she decided.

Bella didn't know why she was still awake. She brought the gin to her mouth once again, but as it reached her lips she could not bring herself to drink it. As she held it there, the pungent odor reached her nose and she felt yesterday's dinner and, with horror,  _twelve_  Xanax begin to rise. Swallowing reflexively, Bella placed the bottle back on the bar and once again rested her head against the surface of it. She willed herself not to vomit.

"Why don't you move to the couch, sweet one?" Jasper was suddenly at her side, helping her off of the barstool. She felt his firm hands around her stomach as he held her up and steady. When they reached the couch Bella fell down heavy upon it. Once there, Jasper returned to Edward, some twelve feet or so away. Laying horizontal made Bella feel incredibly sleepy, but some of the conversation they had filtered through to her ears

"So it was just wrong place at the wrong time?" Jasper asked, looking back over at the unconscious woman on the couch. "Shit, Edward – I had no idea you were bringing someone, or I would have just gone upstairs," he continued, and Bella thought she could hear guilt, even her state.

"I'd been texting you for the last two  _fucking_  hours," Edward snapped, before taking a deep breath. "Whatever," he decided, "shit happens."

There was a lag in the conversation and Bella felt the blackness of sleep – or was it death? Would this be the final sleep? – edge ever so temptingly close. Just as she was about to give into it, she heard Jasper start to speak again.

"You know how you said you didn't want to use James to find your next supply?" Jasper asked. "There is another option, you know…"

The last thing Bella was aware of was a pillow being jammed under her head and a blanket pulled over her limp form before she embraced the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> The four thousand dollar rug line reference and a few lines from Edward and Jasper's dialogue are taken directly from Elena Hearty's book and the inspiration for this fic, Donor. Thanks for reading!


	3. Door Number Two

CHAPTER THREE

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Bella awoke to a splashing sound. Slowly,  _very_ slowly she became aware that the sound was coming from vomit landing in a bright red bucket.  _Her_ vomit.

She didn't remember opening her eyes but she must have, because how else would she have gotten directly over the bucket? She wanted to further explore the thought but another round of violent heaving begun and all of Bella's thoughts stopped, focused only on her misery.

After five minutes that seemed to drag on for hours and hours, Bella finally sat up, wiping her mouth with her forearm and breathing heavily. She looked down at herself in disgust. Vomit was everywhere – in her hair, the front and collar of her shirt, and lining the creases of her neck with its sticky residue. The marble floor was be speckled with fluids that had leaked out of her from before she had found the bucket, apparently.

The sight of the floors made Bella's brain come around and she quickly looked around at her surroundings. She was still in the parlor that she had been in last night.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to roll back over and hope that when she woke up again it would be in the safety of her warm bed at home. It was a larger part than it should have been. Bella had learned long ago that one couldn't just wake up to end the nightmares.

She tried to stand but her stomach revolted at the idea and she spent another ten or so minutes throwing up into the bucket. Afterwards Bella was finally able to stand on trembling legs, looking around the room. She noted that the body and the rug it had been laying upon was gone as was the couch that she had been upon when she fell asleep. Bella paused for a moment. She  _had_  fallen asleep on a couch, hadn't she? Her head pounded and she continued to look around the room until her eyes landed upon her purse, still sitting on the bar from last night.

Desperately she stumbled over to where it rested and began digging through the wide array of items inside. She knew that there were loose pills at the bottom of her purse but she had so much  _junk_ – angrily she dumped the entire thing out on the bar, sifting through the contents that way. Immediately she noticed that her cellphone, cigarettes and her keys were missing. She found three Xanax and a half-filled bottle of Ambien and she was pretty sure that she had some Advil and Percocet in one of the zipped pockets. She took one of the Xanax and chewed before she looked and saw the sink behind the bar, quickly hurrying to it and washing the vomit off of her face, neck and shirt in disgust before taking a few drinks straight from the tap.

Once done she looked around, willing panic away and resisting the urge to take another Xanax. She saw nor heard either Edward or Jasper. All the hair on her body stood on end when she thought of the pair and her hands began to tremble. Without thinking about it, she ran down the hall for the front door, all the while keeping an eye out for her captors. For some stupid reason, tears started to form in Bella's eyes when the door did not budge – seriously, what had she expected? Even knowing the futility of the situation she continued to furiously try the handle, resisting the urge to scream each time the door did not open.

Bella stood there for a moment, fingers still wrapped upon the metal in her hand as she tried to think of what to do next. She thought back to when she walked down here with Edward –  _like a fucking idiot_ , whispered a nasty voice inside of her head – all other doors had been boarded or bricked up and they were in the basement so she doubted there were any windows.

With a growing sense of doom, she resolved to look for a landline of some sort. But first she felt the need to relieve the growing sense of discomfort in her bladder, reluctantly venturing to the bathroom. She expected to run smack into Edward or Jasper several times as she walked but thankfully reached it sans running into any sociopathic murderers.

She locked the door behind her and – dancing with the sudden need to pee _right now_ – she quickly ripped her pants down. Once done she made her way over to the sink and began to wash her hands. She caught her reflection in the mirror and cringed – she looked  _awful_. Even if one were to forgive the vomit streaking through her long dark hair, it was impossible to overlook grey tinge that her angular face had taken the color of or the fact that her blue eyes looked watery, red and had a sunken look about them. She knew that she really didn't have the time to pick the vomit out of her hair but she did it anyway, grimacing in disgust. When she had managed to get most of it out she washed her hands again and exited the bathroom, peering around for her captors wearily.

Not seeing or hearing either man, Bella ventured out of the bathroom and started down the hallway towards the parlor with slow, tentative steps. From what Bella could see, Edward's apartment split into two different wings off of the foyer with the bathroom in the very center. So far, Bella had only seen the left wing of the house that included the parlor, a library and three closed doors at the end. Bella wanted to search in them but could not force herself to open any of the doors; Edward or Jasper might be behind one or more of them and she did  _not_ want to face them.

She chose instead to venture into the library. Once inside, Bella realized that it was  _massive_  – wall to wall were shelves of books of all kinds, though from the look of it Edward seemed to favor mostly nonfiction. There were several display cases scattered throughout the room with a wide array of items that Bella didn't have time to look at right now, as well as two leather sofas off to one corner and a work station near them. Encouraged, Bella hurried over to it, looking desperately for any sign of a computer or a tablet or  _phone_  of any kind. She came up bitterly empty handed. Bella had suspicions that all the things she was searching for had once been right where she was searching; that Edward or Jasper had removed them upon her arrival.  _Duh, Bella_ , the voice sneered again.  _Of course they did._

Frustrated and anxious, she slowly made her way back to the foyer.

The prospect of adventuring to the right wing was enough to make her start to physically shake – that was the direction Edward had taken Jessica and the thought of going there had Bella reaching for the second Xanax in her pocket. She chewed it as she made her way towards where she heard Jessica's screams come from the night before.

She came to a large, modern looking kitchen. Immediately it made Bella think of her mother – Renee had loved all of those home and garden channels, the ones where people who caught butterflies and sold handmade dream catchers for a living somehow had exorbitant amounts of money to turn a run-down house into their ultimate dream home. It was everything Renee had ever wanted in a kitchen; dark solid oak cabinets with chrome finishing to match the stainless steel, state of the art appliances. Granite countertops lined the walls with a decorative, aesthetically pleasing backsplash running around like a ribbon on a gift. The island in the middle was large enough to be an  _actual_  island. Christ.

_A weapon. Have to find a weapon_ , Bella thought determinedly, frantically beginning to open drawers, which she found were mostly empty. Apparently this professional kitchen was just for show. Finally she managed to find something – a dull steak knife. She eyed it distastefully, seriously doubting its ability to injure anyone, let alone a man who had at least a hundred pounds on her. Still, it was better than nothing and she tucked it in her jeans, behind her so that she could feel it touching her skin. Next she searched for a landline, or some forgotten Hail Mary cellphone. Again she found nothing.

Bella continued to walk, coming across a dining room that seemed to be the picture of the definition of opulence. There were candelabras and decorative placemats on a large mahogany table and pieces of art that looked to cost more than her car displayed on the walls. There was a chandelier made of what appeared to be real crystal hanging from the ceiling.

For all its finery, there was no phone. Useless.

Making her way back to the kitchen, Bella's eyes landed upon a door just off to the side. It was a large door, made of solid metal like the kind one saw in apartments in big cities. The door was opened, actually, just a hand span. Bella headed for it.

After about two steps, however, Bella's feet stilled. A wave of intuition crashed over her – she did  _not_ want to look at whatever was in that room. Bad things happened in that room, she suddenly knew. It was probably where Edward had taken Jessica last night. Upon further inspection, Bella realized that the brown stain that was along the wedge of the door was not dirt, as she had thought upon seeing it. It was dried blood.

_Nope,_ Bella thought quickly, turning on her heel to get as far away from the door as she could. She let out a small scream when she came face to face with Edward, leaning against the kitchen island and looking at her with interest.

"Making yourself at home, are you?" he taunted, arms folded against his broad chest. Fear choked her and she said nothing. Edward had changed since last night and the designer clothes highlighted his lean, muscular frame as well as his cruelly beautiful face. Enjoying her reaction to his presence, he flashed her a wide grin, showing off perfectly straight white teeth. His smile made Bella start to tremble – it was the exact smile that she remembered him wearing as he taunted Jessica before he killed her

He seemed to be observing her closely and, to Bella's terror, his expression seemed to be growing more and more frustrated. Panic swelled in her chest as she looked down at the ground. "Sorry," she managed to choke out, barely a whisper.

He let out a frustrated sound before he was suddenly  _right there_ , in front of her within arm's reach. "Look at me," he demanded. Seriously concerned about the fact that she kept dissociating, Bella slowly raised her eyes until they landed on his mouth, waiting for his next move all while feeling like a string that was being stretched too tight. She felt one of his hands grab her chin, his long fingers completely covering her lower jaw, lifting it sharply. She still could not bring herself to meet his gaze, despite the position – she looked instead smack at the space above his lip and below his nose. The thought of looking the murderer she had seen last night in the eye was enough to make her fingers itch for the final remaining Xanax in her pocket.

He gripped her jaw harder with his fingers, making her inhale sharply from pain. She watched his mouth curl into a wolfish grin as her heart started to race against her chest and she found herself wondering if he enjoyed her fear. "I said  _look_ at me, Bella. I know you can, you did just fine last night," Edward spoke, his voice a lilting sort of soft chide.

_That was before I knew you were a_ _ **monster**_ , Bella thought with venom, the taste of hatred rising in the back of her throat. The anger that his words caused overrode her crippling anxiety enough to where she was finally able to lift her gaze the last few inches and meet Edward's eyes with her own.

They seemed much more striking today, somehow – a vibrant, electric green with hints of gold speckled throughout. They rested over high cheekbones and a strong, masculine jawline.

She reflected that he was the embodiment of  _every_ reason she did not trust the world; someone so evil should not also be so beautiful.

As she looked at him she imagined that the corruption that was no doubt inside his soul was physically manifesting – imagined his veins turning black and spider webbing up his face, his eyes turning into crimson slits, his skin turning patchy and dry, blossoming with boils. "Interesting," Edward murmured, brushing a stray strand of hair from her eyes. He continued staring curiously into her blue depths, ignoring the baleful way she stared at him. "Are you thinking right now?" he asked curiously.

Irritation sparked up her spine. What kind of question was that?  _Thinking of your flesh rotting and all of your teeth falling out_ , she thought pugnaciously. "Yes," she responded quietly. It was difficult to speak with his hand gripping her face so.

"Interesting," he repeated, releasing her. She abruptly stumbled back, resisting the urge to rub her jaw. She watched as he ventured back to the island, sitting at the closest of the stools resting there. "Please, sit," he directed, motioning to the other stools next to him.

Not having much choice, Bella chose the one furthest from him, enjoying the illusion that the two that rested between them offered her any kind of safety. The image of him hauling Jessica over his shoulder, paying no more attention to her struggles any more than a spider would while encasing a fly flashed through her mind. Bella's hands started to shake and she gripped them together, placing them on her lap to hide the motion.

"Are you hungry?" Edward asked, breaking the silence between them. "You were asleep for over fourteen hours," he informed.

That was a surprise. Fourteen hours? She supposed her Xanax-gin mixture combined with the shock of seeing a dead body and, you know,  _listening to someone being murdered_ , really took it out of her.

He was looking at her expectantly, and the longer she did not respond the more irritated his expression became. "No," she whispered truthfully. She probably  _should_  be hungry but she still felt queasy and if she ended up puking again she would end up losing  _two_  of her pills. No, thank you.

"Alright," he turned to face her, eyes traveling over her small frame. "Luckily for you, neither am I. I will be in a couple of days, however. Two or three at most," he told her casually. "That is where  _you_ come in," he informed her, nodding at her once as he pulled his phone from his pocket, tapping the screen lazily, an air of relaxation about him.

Bella's mind flashed again to last night, to Jasper slurping down human blood like it was the best damn mocha he had ever had. Her heart began to pound against her chest, so hard that it was almost painful. "What does that mean?" this time her voice was at a normal volume but it still sounded muted in her own ears, the pounding of her blood echoing through her ears like a drum.

Edward stayed silent for a moment and Bella found herself turning her head to actually look at him. He was watching her closely and seemed to be – was he  _sniffing_? What the actual fuck? Oh god, was he looking at her  _neck_? Her hand itched to reach into her pocket.  _It's the last one,_ Bella realized with a jolt. "Well," Edward began, his eyes lifting from her throat and making eye contact. "That is when I am planning to kill you, I'm afraid," he told her, speaking in the same tone he had yesterday, when discussing the condition of the records.

The words hit her like a slap and she had to look away from him as tears welled up behind her eyes. She blinked rapidly to make them stop – she would  _not_  devolve into the sobbing mess that Jessica had been. It hadn't done her any good anyway and Bella refused to give Edward any satisfaction.

"Is that so?" she found herself asking, a strange numbness falling over her. She thought of the bottle of Ambien with twelve little pills inside.  _Would that be enough?_  she wondered. She had never taken Ambien religiously as she had Xanax – she did not have as much of a tolerance. She considered it a moment, detached.

Part of her absolutely rejected the idea of ending her own life. She did not  _truly_  want to die – there were many things that she had not done that she wanted to, goals and aspirations that had not yet been achieved. But more than that, she did not want her last moments on earth to be as Jessica's were; terrified and in agony. She heard Jessica's screams echo in her ears again and shuddered. Suicide would be kinder.

"Indeed," he affirmed cheerfully. He noticed her trembling and scooted to the next stool over. Bella watched the motion from the corner of her eye, looking down to the single chair that separated them now. "I am not trying to upset you, Bella," he told her in a charming tone. "Do you understand? I am just trying to set appropriate expectations here," he told her. She said nothing, staring at the backsplash of the wall in a daze. Edward exhaled sharply, annoyed. " _Look_  at me, Bella," he demanded.

Bella turned her head to face him, her face smooth as slate. She said nothing.

"I don't believe I had the chance to introduce you to Jessica last night. The other girl that was here. Do you remember her?" he asked.

As if she wasn't replaying the girl's death screams in her mind on repeat right now. "Yes, I remember her," she said, her voice quiet but like steel.

"Good," he nodded, "And I'm sure you remember my friend Jasper. You and he seemed pretty chummy last night," Edward sounded annoyed at the memory. "Anyway, he and I suffer from a similar...affliction, if you will," he locked eyes with her as he said the words, "You must have your theories, based on last night. And I'm also sure you can imagine that it is very difficult to find someone willing to provide me blood on a voluntary basis. Jessica was one of those people," he told her, and Bella honestly couldn't believe her ears. Jessica had  _volunteered_  to be here? It made her feel no less sorry for her death but also made her wonder what kind of person would possibly agree to such a thing. "Unfortunately, she is no longer with us. Which leaves me in an uncomfortable position, as I need to replace her," he paused for a moment, looking curiously at her blank face. He grinned, almost amused. "Do you understand everything so far?" he asked as he moved again, shifting into the empty seat that had separated them. Bella's heartbeat increased by his proximity, though she remained completely still.

"Yes," she responded shortly, irritated that Edward's default assumption was that she had air between her ears and could not comprehend a simple conversation.

"Wonderful," he responded cheerfully before continued, "There are two things that can happen the next time I get thirsty. One, I can take you to that room back there," he motioned to the metal door and Bella gave her first physical reaction since her scream upon seeing him, a small gasp escaping her. He smiled. "I swear to you, I will make it quick. Jessica and yourself are two very different situations, Bella, so relax," he told her, and to her horror he placed a hand on her lower back, right where she had tucked the steak knife under her shirt, at the top of her jeans.

Instantly, Bella stiffened and held her breath, her face snapping away from his and looking once more at the backsplash above the countertops. It was hexagonal in design, and the color scheme reminded her of the ocean. She remembered the first time she had seen the Pacific Ocean in all of its glory at the tender age of seven, a day trip with her mother. When she had seen it, she had cried.

" _Bella_ ," Edward's eyes went wide, sounding scandalized even as he laughed. Bella was snapped back into the present as he lifted up her shirt and grabbed the knife, his fingers ghosting across the skin of her back. Bella shivered at the contact – not only did him touching her make her gorge want to rise but also his fingers were  _ice_  cold. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, Bella this is  _not_  okay," he chided as he placed the knife on the counter in front of them, unconcerned. "Jessica died over a knife, do you remember?" asked her a few moments later and his voice lost all humor, his green eyes going flat.

Bella's stomach dropped. Now that he mentioned it, she  _did_ remember Edward mentioning something about a knife to Jasper last night. Her entire body remained tense and she could hear her heart pounding in her ears.

"Don't worry, Bella. It is only natural to protect oneself, after all. You did not know any better, did you?" he asked, as if speaking to a child. Bella flushed, imagining picking up the knife and stabbing it into his neck. " _Anyway_ ," he continued, flashing a grin. "That is the worst case scenario. We'll call that  _Door Number One_ ," he told her.

Bella waited for a moment for him to continue. When it became apparent that he was not going to, she turned her face to look at him again. Somehow she knew that that was what he was waiting for, and she found him staring at her, looking strangely delighted. "Door number one as in there is a door number two?" she prompted him, deadpan.

The corners of his lips twitched, "Door number two is rather tricky, Bella. I've gotten pretty proficient at the practice over the years, but there are still some obstacles that need to be overcome. The second option is where I can feed on you without killing you, as long as you follow the rules," he motioned to the knife on the counter. "No more of that, for starters."

Bella blinked, resisting the urge she had to look away from his face. "Would you…" she trailed off, wondering if she should even ask. "Would you let me go afterwards?" she forced out, despite the fact that she felt her throat was beginning to constrict. She tried to breathe regularly, through her nose and out her mouth. She could  _not_ have a panic attack right now.

"See, that's the problem with door number two, Bella," he told her with a smile. "Door number two is really just door number one, but with more stops along the way. This is why you really need to consider your options here, Bella," she hated the way he said her name so often. Every time he did it she imagined that he was giving her a pat on the head, like a dog. "There are no windows in here. No friends, no family," Bella's chest hurt when she realized the only thing that applied to her was the windows – she had no friends or family outside, either.

"For all intents and purposes, you are already dead. Right now, even before you make the choice. I will be the first one to admit that I'd be doing you a favor if I killed you in a couple of days," he told her, nonchalantly. "It's really not any kind of life that I would want."

_Does anyone ever get the life they want?_  Bella wondered as she considered his words. Perhaps some people did. "Why did Jessica agree to this?" she found herself asking. "Did you tell her all of this?"

"Well, not quite as explicitly as I am speaking to you, I admit. Jessica was a different situation. She was into this whole alternative, dark lifestyle – she hoped, actually, that by offering herself to Jasper and myself, we would make her like us. I can't even explain to you how much that was never going to happen," he told her, making a face. "I'm telling you this because you don't seem to be another wannabe freak that I am  _so fucking_  sick of, you have no idea. Which is good, but also bad because it means you don't exactly want to be here."

His candor left Bella breathless. He seemed so casual about the whole situation –  _When he looks at me, what does he see?_ Bella wondered. She imagined him as a child ripping the wings off a butterfly, delighting in the destruction of everything the caterpillar had ever worked to achieve. Watching as a creature of the air died miserable and broken in the dirt of the earth.

"Jessica wasn't the only one?" she asked quietly.

"No. There have been many, over the years. Allow me to be honest here, Bella," he leaned in towards her slightly, looking at her face as if he were memorizing every line. The Xanax in her pocket seemed to be burning against her thigh. "They are all dead. Every single one of them ended up on the other side of that door," he pointed and Bella's eyes flashed to it as if against her will.

"Take a few days. I won't bother you until I am thirsty again and until then you are my guest here," he said after several moments of silence from her. "Jessica kept the pantry full and you're welcome to whatever you would like. I'm not going to sit around and make you drinks like Jasper but feel free to help yourself. All I ask is that you clean up after yourself," he explained this matter-of-factly, as if she were a roommate on her first day. Edward eyed her vomit stained clothing with obvious distaste. "Speaking of which, you should come with me," she heard his chair sound against the floor but it seemed like she did not see him move at all, despite looking right at him.

Bella scrambled off of her stool and followed him, relieved that he did not reach for her hand as he had yesterday. They walked past the Door of Death, as Bella officially named it, and her heart raced as they passed it but thankfully they continued down the hallway that led to one of the three closed doors she had been too nervous to try earlier.

"Jessica brought tons of shit when she came here – way too much, honestly," he considered her frame for a moment, making her extremely uncomfortable. "You're not quite the same size but you should be able to find a pair of fresh clothes," he told her as he opened the door. "This room has its own bathroom too, so feel free to shower."

The room before her was chaos. Drawers were thrown open, their contents thrown carelessly all over. The bed was ransacked, the mattress half off of the box spring on the ground. Other items littered the ground and as Bella looked further even the bathroom seemed to have been searched. It looked like there had been a drug raid.

"Yeah, it's kind of a mess right now. Not that it was much better before," he shrugged. "You should be set on clothes and food though. I'm actually about to leave for a while. Is there anything you need?" he asked.

_Xanax, I need more Xanax,_ Bella thought desperately as she looked at the mess before her but she shook her head. "When will you be back?" she blurted before she could stop herself.

"I'll be back when I'm back," he said shortly, sounding annoyed.

Bella looked back to where he had been standing, but he was already gone.


	4. Ghost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:
> 
> This chapter was originally supposed to be much longer, but when everything was said and done it was almost 12,000 words. So I found a spot that seemed like a good place to stop and everything leftover will be seen in chapter 5 and part of chapter 6.
> 
> I want to thank everyone for reading and commenting!

With Edward gone, Bella was left standing in the ruins of all that was left of Jessica. It was hard for Bella to imagine what the room had looked like before the ransacking but from what she was able to see, Jessica's life had been very isolated. The walls were devoid of decoration – no photos of loved ones or friends, no other visual stimuli to speak of. The furniture was threadbare and worn. Bella quickly righted the thin twin mattress, eyes landing on the small bookshelf across the room. She walked to it and looked at the selection – it was stuffed with romance novels and brain teaser books of all sorts. Bella lifted one of the former and found that every page had been completed. On the floor was a small, boxy-looking television with an old Nintendo sixty-four that unsurprisingly did not look damaged at all.

 

The vanity on the far wall showcased another one of Jessica's pastimes; nail care. From the surface of the vanity, it was apparently one of her favorite things to do – it was littered with dozens of bottles of nail polish of all colors, countless files, decals, trimmers and extensions. Bella's mind conjured up an image of the girl from last night, sitting on the bed in the room day after day, painting her nails pretty colors with intricate designs in this dark, colorless room.

 

Shuddering, Bella pushed the thought away. She had her own problems to worry about, after all. The most prominent one being the metallic taste starting to form in her mouth. Reflexively, she reached into her pocket and quickly ate her final pill – there really was no point in delaying the inevitable. One pill wasn't going to save her from the hell she knew awaited right around the corner.

 

She remembered with a hint of embarrassment the time that she had gone to her general practitioner – the one that didn't bill her insurance, obviously – when she had miscounted the amount of pills that she had until her next refill, running out a whole two weeks early. She still remembered how humiliated she had been as he lectured her about how lucky she was that her withdrawal symptoms were not worse, how serious  _benzodiazepine_ withdrawal was – if people came off too fast they could even have seizures.

 

_And you were lucky then, weren't you?_ the snide voice in her mind taunted. She had had foul tastes in her mouth, insomnia, muscle tremors and mood swings that could make the most seasoned dancers dizzy but no seizures. By the time that two weeks came and she could get her refill, she had felt good as new. That had been when she was only taking five and seven a day – now she was taking twice that, easily. What was she going to do?

 

She sat down on the bed, a full-blown panic attack trying to work its way up her throat. She needed to distract herself. With a rush of inspiration she began trying to locate clean clothes from the dead girl's supply. It was not an encouraging prospect. From what she remembered, Jessica had been a good four inches taller than Bella was and easily had two cup sizes up on her.

 

Resigned to wearing clothes that were like to fall off of her frame, Bella managed to find a pair of black leggings that she was sure would fit as well as a shirt that seemed small enough that would fit. It was a simple black shirt with the letters HBIC in bold, capital letters. Whatever that meant. With those found, Bella faced her next moral dilemma – to wear the dead girl's underwear, or no? Well, what else was she going to do? She was able to find a drawer with several banal options made of one hundred percent cotton with a sense of relief – the rest of the options were frilly thongs and G-strings that made Bella cringe.

 

Making her way into the adjoined bathroom, Bella quickly picked up the scattered remains of the medicine cabinet on the floor. She told herself that she did it so quickly to avoid tripping over them but in truth she looked to see if there were any bottles of benzos in the mix. No such luck.

 

Frustrated and filled with anxiety, she quickly shed her vomit-stained clothes and kicked them furiously into the corner. She pulled back the shower curtain and started the water before jumping inside. She let out a small gasp – the water was  _cold_  at first and it reminded her of Edward's fingertips, snaking on her back – but then the water heater kicked in and Bella closed her eyes as heat rained down over her body.

 

Jessica had a wide array of scented soaps and shampoos and Bella helped herself to them, allowing her natural routine to overtake her. It was not a good thing – it allowed her too much time to think. Bella doubted that anyone had missed her yet; she had no immediate family to speak of, worked from home with remote clients and extended deadlines. She had no landlord to come looking for missed rent. She felt a catch in the back of her throat and it burned when she tried to swallow around it; no one was going to miss her anytime soon. No one was coming for her.

 

Tears started to merge with the shower spray and Bella allowed herself a few moments to cry. It was a weakness, she knew, but it was a weakness she needed – before she knew it great, shuddering sobs began to wrack her chest, leaving her breathless. Images of the night before flickered behind her eyes; the dead body, Jessica's tear-stained face, Jasper drinking crimson liquid from a crystal glass. She heard Jessica's screams again and again, repeating through her mind like her Walkman had skipped over on bumpy roads.

 

_Stop_ , Bella thought forcefully, shaking her head as if the motion could somehow physically shove the thoughts away. She rinsed the last bit of shampoo out of her eyes and shut off the water with a flourish and stepping out. She dripped water onto the cold stone floor before she quickly wiped off and donned the dead girl's clothes. Avoiding looking at her reflection, she made her way back into Jessica's room.

_Your room now,_  the nasty voice whispered from the darkness of her mind.

 

As she stood in the destruction once again, her wet hair dripping onto the muted carpet at her feet, Bella wondered what her next move should be. With Edward gone, Bella figured that it was a good time as any to try the door again. Making her way cautiously through the house – who knew if he was  _really_  gone, after all? – she stopped at the bar where the pile of things she had tossed out of her bag earlier rested, carefully scooping it all back inside sans two spare bobby pins she found in the rubble.

 

She had actually done some research on picking locks, back when she had first moved into her mother's house. Bella had been fixated on the idea of a home intruder, plagued by visions of someone breaking in and murdering her as she slept. She kept one of the bobby pins in its original shape and bent the bottom of it against the bar, using her body weight to push it into a 'L' shape, planning to use it as a tension wrench. The other one she pried apart the metal, opening it to be a larger 'L'. From what she remembered online, all she would have to do was insert the tension wrench and use the other one to sort of scrub over the pins inside the locks.

 

The process was made more difficult by the fact that her hands could not stop shaking. When she was done she wrung out her hands, wincing at how much pressure she had had to apply to bend the metal. Instruments prepared, she made her way back to the front door. She tried it once more, just in case Edward for whatever reason had left it unlocked, knowing even before she did it that it was futile.

 

Bella gathered herself.  _You can do this_ , Bella repeated in her head like a mantra as she stretched her fingers and hands out, desperately trying to keep them steady. She inserted the pin that would serve as a tension and then took the other that she had opened wide, gently brushing against the pins inside as she jimmied the wench sideways.

 

To her sincere disbelief, after several long minutes of trying this, she actually felt the tension wrench start to move to the side. She repeated the motion and soon was able to push the tension all the way over. Bella both heard  _and_  felt the faint  _click_  that signified that it unlocked. Bella was so shocked that she almost dropped her tools. Adrenaline flooded her body and she quickly pulled them free, shaking out her hands as she tried to push down the swell of excitement in her chest. She couldn't afford to lose focus now. She let out an almost manic laugh before beginning on the second lock.

 

The adrenaline pumping through her body made it easier to keep her hands from shaking, as if everything had honed in and sharpened. When, after another minute or two passed, the second lock shrugged open Bella actually let out a whoop of excitement – she was only one lock away from freedom. The image of her tiny bottle of Xanax floated through her mind again. She could almost taste their ambrosia on her tongue, bitter and grainy.

 

She looked at the third lock and realized for the first time that it looked different than the other two. It was almost indiscernible from the others but the longer she stared at it she realized that it was a slightly different shape and seemed newer than the others. A feeling of foreboding pricked up her fingertips but she pushed it away as she stretched her hands out once again.

 

She slid the tension wrench inside the third lock before she brought the open bobby pin inside the lock once more, thrumming against the pins inside with what was by now almost a practiced ease. She did it again and again, trying to ignore the growing sense of dread building in her chest.

 

It wasn't working. She kept gently pushing the wrench sideways and drawing the other pin in and out, trying to choke back her panic. The wrench did not move at all, even as she shimmied and tried to force it sideways. Bella felt her heartbeat start to race, blood pounding in her ears. Fear flooded her veins and her hands began to shake again.  _No, no, no, it's the last one,_ Bella thought as her motions became more and more frantic. She had to get out of here, had to get back home and call the police and then never leave her house again and –

 

When she felt the bobby pin she was using to strum the pins inside the lock snap, it seemed like the vibration traveled all the way through her hand, up her arms until it reached her skull, reverberating her senses. She pulled her tools loose and saw that only a small piece off of the top of the pin had broken off inside. Desperately she jammed it back in, trying to fish the bit out. She could  _hear_  it tinking around somewhere inside the lock, even felt her pin brush against it multiple times but it was no use. She doubted even if she could stop the tremors in her hands that she would be able to finesse it out.

 

"FUCK," Bella exploded, slamming her palm against the door in a white rage. She did it over and over and over, screaming wordless fury. Then she took the tools she had been using and flung them across the room, screaming until her voice died out. Only then did she lean back against the door, sliding down it until her bottom hit the ground. She yanked on her hair sharply, resisting the urge to punch herself in the head by the barest bit of control.

 

Not having a panic attack was no longer an option. She stared around at the room between fistfuls of hair, watching as the room started trembling, the walls beginning to shift and tighten around her. The pale gold walls started to darken, decaying at the edges where they met the crown molding. A century's worth of blood and horror stained the creases of the edges of the room while the paintings on the walls withered and aged. "Oh, god," Bella groaned, pushing herself off of the ground with a desperate shove, fleeing down the hallway till she reached her purse on the bar. She pulled out her bottle of Ambien and grabbed two of them, swallowing one and tucking one under her tongue. She took the bottle with her as she ran back to Jessica's room like there was a monster chasing after her.

 

She threw herself onto Jessica's bed, pulling the dead woman's blankets over her and shutting out the rest of the world. The fact that Jessica's scent was everywhere was distracting and also horrifying but she couldn't stand to watch the horrors her mind cooked up manifest behind her eyelids. Renee had always told her that her creative mind was the thing she loved most about Bella, that she should nurture it and expand it.

 

But her mother had died and her mother had no idea what her anxiety did to her creative mind, manipulating it and twisting it until her life was her own personal house of horrors. When Bella took her Xanax, she was fine most of the time – her thoughts were clear, she did not obsess, she was even able to enjoy herself in her environment. When she had her pills, only the largest stressors could trigger the kind of semi-delusions she currently felt trying to claw their way out from her eyeballs.

 

Bella focused to regulate her breathing, closing her eyes and trying to think of things that would calm her down. She thought of sea shells. True tulip shells were always her favorite because they had such small openings; Bella liked that when she looked at them she could only see the opening of the shell on one side and not the other. She also liked the algorithmic curve that every shell had – the smooth, gradual spiral that was found in many other places in nature. One could see it in the growth of certain plants, the horns of a ram, the way hurricanes form and the curve of faraway spiral galaxies. As above, so below.

 

The images flashed across the closed lids of her eyes and Bella felt her breathing start to regulate. She breathed deeply and slowly, enjoying the way that the bit of tongue that the Ambien rested under was slightly numb. The blackness of sleep swept over her suddenly and with no warning, pulling her into its dark embrace as gently as a breeze pulls a seed head off of a dandelion.

 

**. … .**

 

Jasper opened the door to his penthouse, greeted by the sunlight pouring in the various skylights his home offered. He had the windows UV coated long ago, making the sunlight merely pleasant rather than annoying and slightly painful. To be honest, his skylights were the only appeal to the apartment – it was otherwise lacking in any decoration or embellishment other than functional furniture. Jasper was rarely at home other than to sleep and he felt no need to decorate.

 

He walked into his living room and glared at the sight he saw. His large, sectional couch was occupied by his recent roomie, who was snoozing comfortably. Annoyed, Jasper kicked his leg hanging over the edge to wake him. Edward opened his eyes in irritation, his leg never moving. "What?" the other man growled, his voice rough from sleep.

 

"Jenks is done. All he had to do was resign her from her job and inform her doctors that she was moving," he told Edward as he leaned against the door frame. "He said that he's never had an easier cleanup his entire tenure," Jasper smiled at how beautifully Bella Swan had been erased. Her accounts had had more than enough money to pay the property tax on her home for many years – all that had to be done was cancel the water and electricity and set up automatic payments to the county. Jenks would file her taxes for the next couple years, just for appearances, but after that Bella Swan would officially fall off the face of the earth.

 

_Talk about tying loose ends,_ Jasper thought happily to himself before feeling a small twitch of guilt. He remembered the girl downstairs – a small waif of a thing with big blue eyes that seemed both ancient and innocent. She reminded him of those paintings of the kids with the huge eyes, and he felt a small spasm of pity that she had no one to care about what happened to her.

 

"That's it? That's all he had to do?" Edward asked, surprise apparent on his face.

 

"Yep. The girl is practically a ghost," Jasper told him nonchalantly, shrugging as he sat on the only chair he had in the room. Edward's sprawling form took up his whole couch and Jasper looked grumpily at his comfortable form. That was  _his_  couch. "Don't you  _have_ an apartment?" he pouted.

 

"This  _is_  my apartment," Edward growled as he closed his eyes once more. " _This_  is my apartment. The one downstairs is my apartment, and all the ones in between are mine. I own the building, fucker," Edward pulled Jasper's only couch throw pillow over his eyes. "Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep."

"Here's a novel idea," Jasper's voice sounded excited, as if the proverbial light bulb had lit up above his head. "Why don't you go sleep at  _your_  place? I hear you even have a  _bed_  down there."

 

"If you keep talking, I swear to god, I will rip your fucking fangs out," Edward threatened, his voice muffled from under the pillow.

 

Jasper grinned, holding back laughter even as his voice took on an offended edge, "Not funny, Edward. You know how long those take to regenerate," he replied haughtily. "But seriously, what gives? You haven't been up here this much since the eighties," Jasper said, his mind going back to that time with nostalgia. It really had been a  _great_  decade, he reflected – terrible music, women in spandex, so much blow up everyone's noses that they couldn't tell up from down.  _Ahh, simpler times_.

 

"Fuck off, Jasper," the other man said moodily.

 

"You fuck off, man. Go  _home_ ," he was really starting to get mad. He hadn't fed in about two days and hadn't slept for just about that long as well, and Edward's presence was really starting to grate at him. He wanted to be  _alone_ , have some space to think without wondering if Edward was choosing to listen to his thoughts like a fucking prick.

 

"You're the  _fucking_  prick," Edward exploded, the other man's patience snapping as he whipped the pillow he had been using at Jasper's face. Lazily, Jasper moved his head to the side, allowing it to land harmlessly upon the hardwood floors. "It's your fault, you know. I  _told_ you to take care of her while I was dealing with Jessica. But  _no_ ," he sneered, "You had to go all soft and leave me to deal with the shit."

 

Jasper rolled his eyes, exaggerating the movement, "I've never known you to be so squeamish, Edward. I had just ate right before I met her, anyway. And the girl you found smells  _really_  good, even with all the drugs in her system," he remembered how she smelled, as if her blood would be light and fruity but pack a punch, like a fine wine aged over many years. "I figured since I messed the Jessica situation up for you, she could be a convenient stand in," Jasper smiled at how nicely the pieces had all fallen together.

 

'Oh, blow me, Jasper," Edward scoffed, "Don't lie – you just feel guilty because you practically signed the girl's death warrant. You get way too attached, man. Always have," Edward scorned disdainfully, "They die like weeds, Jasper. Get  _over_  it."

Anger stirred in Jasper's gut but he pushed it down with a hateful smile at the asshole laying on his couch, "If that's the case, why don't you just go deal with the interloper downstairs and make both our lives easier?" Jasper asked maliciously, beyond the point of caring about the brown haired, blue eyed wisp downstairs. "Honestly, I've seen your face damn near every day for the last century and never once have I wanted to rip it off so badly," Jasper remained smiling but had to reign in all self-control to prevent grinding the armrest of his chair into dust.

 

Edward exhaled loudly, giving up all premise of sleep and running a hand through his hair. "Fucking aye, man, it's just weird, okay?" he said exasperatedly, sounding disgusted with himself. "First off – why can't I read the girl's mind? I mean I noticed that she was a quiet one when we were in the shop. Three of the others were practically screaming at me when I walked in," he cringed at the memory, rubbing his forehead absentmindedly. "I just didn't know quiet meant  _silent_. It's fucking weird, man. And I'm also not used to someone who… who doesn't…" he trailed off with a curse.

 

The corners of Jasper's mouth turned up, "What? Got used to the simpering, longing glances of the  _freaks_  James supplies you?" Jasper sneered. Edward casted him a black look before he sighed and ran his hand through his hair again.

 

"Maybe," Edward allowed. "Christ, Jasper, you should have seen the  _hate_ in that girl's eyes. I haven't seen that in quite a long time," he admitted. Unwillingly, his mind flashed to the last woman who had looked at him so. He winced, pushing the thought away.

 

"You're just freaked because you can't read her thoughts and I can't feel her. It's weird, definitely an interesting anomaly, sure," Jasper allowed, rolling his eyes. He needed Edward out of his apartment  _yesterday_. "But really, who fucking cares? Just put her out of her damn misery if she bothers you so much."

 

"Fuck off, Jasper," Edward growled. Apparently Jasper had finally sufficiently annoyed him enough to make him leave because he quickly stood from the couch and a half-second later the front door slammed hard enough to shake the entire floor.

 

Jasper stood up happily, picking up the discarded throw pillow from the ground. The next second he was flopping onto the sofa with it jammed under his head. He smiled, sighing contently as his hazel eyes fluttered shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> The paintings that Jasper describes are the the ones painted by Margaret Keane. Thanks for reading!


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